


Hand to Hold

by Barkour



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2011-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:07:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A formal dinner goes poorly for Loki, but there's home, still, and there's Sif.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand to Hold

**Author's Note:**

> For Rawles. This is set several years after the film, I'd say, and it's in the same ill-defined continuity as [Out of Consideration for Paisley](http://archiveofourown.org/works/211747), which you needn't read to read this.

Dinner took a turn for the awkward. That had ever been a possibility, Sif supposed. Difficult to bring together many of Midgard's most esteemed heroes and one who had fought them and not have it go sour after a few drinks. Loki retreated, champagne flute in hand, before civility broke down further. His shadow trailed after him as a cloak would. He was always so concerned with appearances.

Sif remained a minute, no more. He would need space to gather his dignity, and she'd a length of salted pork to finish. She speared the last inch and considered the party. Brave warriors, all of them, even those who would never have thought themselves such. Witnessing the Spider-man's Mary Jane Watson shout down the Iron Man had been one of the more entertaining moments of Sif's stay on Midgard. But they were Thor's friends before they were Loki's or even Sif's, and when a laugh ran through the company at a joke of the Spider-man's, it was not a joke Sif understood.

She set her plate down on a near table. The Midgard-style gown pulled across her thighs. Beneath the line of the table, Sif grabbed a handful of silky cloth and dragged it down her knees again. The bust, a series of soft folds, bagged at her breasts. The sensibilities of Midgard fashion escaped her.

Another laugh, punctuated by Mary Jane swatting the Spider-man's arm. Straightening, Sif grabbed for a drink.

Loki had only gone so far as the second corridor over. He'd stopped before the bank of windows. There he gazed out the Stark Tower Complex over New York City, which glittered brighter than the stars so dim in Midgard's sky. He was a silhouette, a shadow cast over the glass. He'd opted for a Midgard-style suit, and in it he was sleek, well-formed, and cold.

Sif flanked him. His head moved slightly toward her. He tapped his thumbnail on the champagne flute, cradled between his first and second fingers. Loki looked down to the city again.

"You didn't have to follow me out."

She rolled her glass between her hands. The wine was fragrant, sweet-smelling even as she held it even with her belly. Not strong enough by far for Sif's tongue.

"No," she said, "I didn't have to."

Asgard shone even in dark, but it was a different sort of light than that of Manhattan, which glimmered many colors and showed spots of blackness between them. Somewhere out there someone needed help. Sif thought idly of suggesting they go out and find that someone and render unto them their aid, then Loki said,

"Ah."

The flute pressed to his lips. He turned it over at an angle. His long fingers slid to caress and hold the slender bell. Loki looked at her. His eyelashes wavered.

"I seem to have lost my drink."

"In your mouth, I should think," she said.

He frowned. His fingers worked, rolling the champagne glass over and over along the tips. A little dreg lingered at the bottom of the glass, shining yellow as he spun the glass and spun it. Oh, Sif thought, he was _tipsy_. Loki was so rarely tipsy. He placed far too much importance on self-control to allow it.

"You could always get another glass," she said.

He set the glass down on the window sill. It clinked delicately. His fingers slid free of the stem.

"I think," he said, "I would not."

The past could not be forgotten. Certainly it could not be changed. "Well, at least most of us haven't tried to kill--you know, most of us," Stark had said. Thor had been speaking with Jane and Pepper and missed it. Sif had not. Before she could cross to Stark and punch him in the throat, as her knuckles itched for to do, Loki had very calmly lifted a champagne glass off a tray, smiled at the waiter, and drifted out of the room.

Sif stroked Loki's arm. Her fingers fitted to his elbow. He turned to her, and she thought again how marvelous, that his jaw should be so thick now and not so gaunt. The past could not be changed, but they changed for it. Perhaps that was best.

She pressed her glass into his hand. His fingers hooked about it; they brushed her wrist. The silver bracelet she'd worn, a loan from Natasha, rang off the bell. She squeezed his elbow. The muscles there had tightened then softened to her touch.

"You can have a mouthful of mine, if you'd like," she said.

A little line creased the corner of his left eye. He said, "Thank you," quite dryly, which was his way of being true. She'd learned his language long ago. "The Lady Sif is ever kind."

He bowed his head, just so. A strand of hair fell loose from his hair and brushed her cheek. He lifted his eyes. His lashes were dark, his hair black and shining with Manhattan's unceasing glow.

Sif gave the glass over to him, and she set her hand on his cheek and turned his head that she might kiss him gently on his thin mouth, so very compressed. His lashes lowered. The glass nudged her side, and the sweet scent of the wine engulfed them. Fingers at her waist, long and light as he held her hip in his palm. Manhattan glittered below them, and it was beautiful and it was strange, and it was not home. She folded her lips about his lower lip, that narrow swell, and she offered but she did not give.

Loki sighed into her mouth. His hand slid round to cradle the small of her back. Their noses bumped. He pressed his brow to her brow, his neck bending. He breathed out through his nose and touched his mouth chastely to hers again. Sif closed her eyes and leaned into him. Her fingers twisted in his hair.

"How odd," he wondered, "that we had to come all the way to Midgard to find each other again."

That had been years ago. His neck was cool on her fingers. She turned the tips to his nape. Leaning away from him, she stared up the long bridge of his nose and into his eyes. His pupils, so huge in the dark, had reduced each iris to a pale shadow.

"You," she said, "are drunk."

He pursed his lips. "Only maudlin."

"Drunk and maudlin," she said.

"Must we stay?" he asked.

She rubbed her thumb about his elbow. He leaned against her again, their brows touching. His eyes lidded, then they closed.

"What," she said. "Do you want my permission to cut out?"

"If you would give it," he said. He assumed an air of gravitas. "Naturally you have my permission. We can always apologize to Thor later."

"Always scheming," she said. She worked her fingers down his nape, turning him to her again. A light, lingering kiss to each corner of his mouth, to say I'm here and so are you. "And what wicked plan are you concocting right now?"

He smoothed his hand down her back, palming her arse through the tight, clinging silk of her dress. His fingers cupped her. Sif snorted a laugh into his cheek.

"I have a few ideas," he said. "Mostly they involve pulling this gown off you."

His fingers traced arcane shapes through her dress, each touch another thing dripping hot and sweet down her spine. Quite clearly, she saw how he would do it. She saw, too, how she would pull the jacket from his arching shoulders and pick loose each button of his shirt till he stood chest bared before her. He said,

"I'd hate to tear it, though."

"I should love to tear it," said Sif. "It's impossible to fight in."

"Everything's a fight with you," said Loki, amused. He nuzzled her ear. "For what it's worth, I think you look exceptionally dangerous in it. Like a knife in a jeweled sheath."

Sif pushed down her smile. "Silvertongue," she said. "At least one of us likes it."

She left off his neck to take his tie in hand. Such a silly affectation, but how she liked to pull on it and feel him draw nearer to her, how he gave to its dragging and bent.

"Let's go home," she said.

"If the lady insists," said Loki.

He hooked his arm around her waist. Their hips collided, then her thigh pressed between his legs. Light winked off the champagne flute left in the window frame, then the light twisted and knotted upon itself, and the world gave out around them.

Home, that rounded house in Vindrheimr, reformed about them. It was early afternoon in the northern hemisphere, and the two stars about which Vindrheimr orbited peered through the many windows like eyes set far apart. A light rain shower drove against the glass. Sif wound his tie about her hand and kissed Loki so his lips drew back from his teeth, so his fingers spasmed, digging into her thigh.

Something pressed into her belly. Loki pulled back and looked down. The glass had caught between them. Wine, shaken out of it, spattered Sif's gown. It colored the fingers of his left hand a faint and watery red.

"I appear to have stolen one of the set," said Loki.

"We'll return it tomorrow," said Sif.

"Hmm," he said. He looked up at her. Sif coiled her fingers more tightly in his tie, pulling it so the knot compressed at his throat.

"Yes," he said, "I think that would be best."

His breath was unsteady, only just. "Most of us," Tony had said. Love made Sif sick with the injustice of it. She wished she had struck him.

Loki raised the glass to his lips and drank quickly of the wine. His throat worked. The wine showed like blood on his lips. Sif let go of his tie and caught his wrist instead, the wine spilled down his hand sticky on her palm. She pulled the glass from him and kissed first his jaw, which was smooth, and then, raising his hand, his first and second knuckles.

His breath caught. He said, "Sif," the once, then he turned his head and dropped a series of urgent, graceless kisses along her jaw, her cheek, at her ear. She brought his fingers to her mouth, took his thumb between her teeth, his wine-wet skin sweet. Sif moved against him, and Loki moved with her.

A table, somewhere. Where-- It escaped her. She set the glass down on a chair instead en route to the bedroom. The glass wavered and fell, and the wine spilled out across the upholstery, onto the floor beneath. Loki laughed into her throat.

"As if you wouldn't have dropped it," she said to his fingers.

"Oh, we'll never know now. No use in questioning the past."

He was smiling as he said it. She struggled against her gown for breath. Sif wanted to knot her fingers in his hair and pull him down before her, to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him again until he fell all apart against her and still smiled. Lipping at her ear, Loki whispered, "Would you mind terribly if I tore a seam out?"

"Tear them all out," she said sharply. "I would that you would."

He spun her about. The edge of the bed nudged her knees. Her skirt pulled at her thighs, imprisoning, then it raked up as she spread her thighs and caught his waist between them. Sif dragged Loki down with her. His free hand settled on her thigh so newly bared, and his nails dug into the swell of corded muscle at the back.

Sif licked at his fingers, chasing the last traces of wine from his fingertips, the whorls of each knuckle, the soft lines underneath. As he slid his hand higher up her thigh, vanishing under the rucked folds of the skirt, she arched against him. The heft and weight of his erection pressed into her thigh, and she sucked hard on his first finger, her teeth on the second knuckle.

Loki'd always had such clever hands. She'd thought so even when they were young, watching him as he darted after fish in one of the cultivated creeks which ran through the royal gardens, his hands flashing like fish themselves in the water. His fingers slid under her shorts, hooking them, dragging them down till they turned out. Long hands with long, long fingers, delicate fingers, knuckles small knobs, the bones well-shaped under his skin. Trimmed nails, which scraped now along her upper thighs and then between the labial folds.

Sif ran her tongue down his first finger. She bit down on the nail. Loki turned and pressed his teeth to her jaw. The first finger of his right hand hooked in her, just the tip. A little heat, a small wetness, ran between her legs. She tightened her grip on his waist.

"Loki," she said around the finger in her mouth, "Loki," and her heart was such a heavy thing in her breast, so thick with love it hurt her to know it. Their bedroom was bright about them, even as the rain trembled off the windows. She swallowed. Her teeth caught on his fingertip.

He kissed the underside of her chin. His lips parted. He spoke: "What would the lady Sif ask of me?"

She wanted so many things of him. She wanted everything of him. She said, "Stop teasing."

Loki smiled again, lower teeth bared on her skin. His tie, pulled loose of his jacket, spilled over her chest. If she grabbed it, she thought; and she caught it in her hand. He ran his finger back and forth, down her slickening folds and up again. Very softly, he kissed her throat.

"You do know," he said quite calmly, as if it were so small a thing, "that I love you very dearly. My lady, Sif."

She left off his tie to touch his jaw, to slide her fingers down to his chin. The rain hummed on the windows. A southern wind had started up and the house bobbed gently with it. How odd, he'd said earlier. But perhaps it wasn't so odd, that they had had to go so far from the place where they began to start.

"And I, you," she said. It was too delicate to bear. She tightened her hand on his wrist and said, "But if you will not give me your hand, I can make no promises for the future."

"Well, that's a harsh bargain," he said. He shifted over her, sliding nearer. Again, the hard line of his cock slid along her thigh. He murmured, "Let me see what I can do for you."

His finger pressed into her, the first knuckle, the second, near to the third. Sif arched into his hand. He ran his thumb over her clit, his nail picking at it, and inside her his finger crooked in stages. Another finger slid into her. He bent to her throat; he made love to it with teeth and tongue.

Sif bit at his fingers, two in her mouth, the third finger down curling at her chin. His thumb pressed into her jaw. She sucked hard at his fingers and pushed up into his right hand again.

Loki exhaled against her throat. He bent again, lower, and nipped at her clavicle where it rose to meet her shoulder, in the stretch bared by the gown. Shifting, he slung one leg over her thigh. His thumb scraped over her clitoris again, dragging a moan out of her around the fingers she'd taken between her teeth. Vengefully she raised her thigh between his legs, against his swollen cock. A soft sound in his throat, strangled on his tongue.

Heat roiled in her belly and lower still. His fingers scissored inside her and then spread again. Sif made another sound, a groan pulled out her throat, and rubbed her thigh against him.

Rain sang on the windows. Out in the parlor, the wine was soaking into the chair and drying stickily on the floor. Loki would complain of it later. He'd picked the set out, imported it from the southern hemisphere. She didn't particularly care one way or the other about the chairs, but she wished, then, that she had set the glass down on a table after all. Home, she thought.

"Another," she whispered. She bit cruelly at his fingers and said again, "Another."

"Whatever my lady asks," said Loki to the swell of her breast.

A third finger pressed at her, then into her. Sif twisted her fingers in his hair and dragged at it. She sucked breath in, stuttering as she breathed out again. Home. Their sheets, rucking beneath her. Their bed, steady as she pushed off it and against his hand, his long hand with its slender, clever fingers, steady as she rubbed her thigh against him and his hips jerked a counterpoint. Their house.

He flicked her clit again, again. Again. His fingertips spread within her. Each finger crooked distinct from its fellows, and there it was coming up her thighs, a tightening in her belly, between her legs. She pushed up more forcefully still into his touch and yanked on his hair. His hips jutted along her thigh.

Loki's teeth flashed against her breast. He would not speak. He never spoke. Always so quiet, even when they knotted together so lazily, so sweetly in the dark hours of the evening. His lips moved, brushing her skin. What would he have said to her, if he allowed it?

She pulled on his hair again. Loki lifted his head. His lips, so thin, shone wetly. He'd left a red mark to the side of her breast. In the morning, it would sting. His hair was wild about his brow. How dark his pupils. A ring of red showed in the iris.

Sif stroked his cheek. His skin was cool to the touch, even now, dotted with sweat. She did love him. She loved him so deeply. She wished she knew how to say it that he would understand, but she hadn't Loki's silver tongue. Sif traced his cheekbone with her thumb, and Loki turned his head to kiss her palm. His lashes dropped to his cheeks, and he dropped a kiss on her wrist, where her heart fluttered. In her, his fingers crooked; they stroked, one then the other then the third, like notes drawn out of a string.

Oh, Sif thought. The knot in her tightened then unspooled. She pressed her thigh against him so he gasped into her wrist, and she slung her other leg about his waist and arched as she came around his fingers.

The rain ebbed. A cloud had come over the first of the two suns. Thunder rumbled somewhere high above them. In a moment, the rain would strengthen again, Sif thought. That was usually how it went in the afternoon. Winds from the south and a light storm bearing from the east.

Loki kicked off his trousers then his ruined shorts as well. They piled shamefully on the floor. Sif laughed at the look on his face. She ran her fingers up his bared hip.

"You ought to have got them off first," she said.

He threw her a little narrow look. "My hands were occupied."

"Priss," she said fondly.

He stripped his jacket off. His shoulders bent back. Sif struggled upright against her gown, which for all his promises had emerged unscathed. She caught his hands as he reached to undo his tie.

"Let me," she said.

His hands parted. He raised his chin. Sif shook her hair back and picked at the knot, tugging at the cloth so it loosened by fractions. The rain returned with force. Her breathing was heavy yet. Like after a good spar, she thought, and she practiced steadying her heart. Loki was very still beneath her hands.

The knot came apart. Sif reached around his head, unwinding the tie from his throat. Like a serpent striking, he kissed the underside of her arm as she brought it around again. The bracelet slid down her wrist.

"My deepest gratitude," he said, "for your irreplaceable assistance."

"Your turn," she said, and she showed him her back.

The row of little pearl buttons popped beneath his fingers, one after the other all down her back. The gown split. He stroked a finger down her spine, then he stooped and kissed a spot between her shoulder blades, and he wrapped his arms about her.

They fell back together into the bed. He still had his shirt on. Sif plucked at a cuff.

"Take this off."

"In a moment," he said.

He laid his head down on the pillow. His face was pale, exhausted. She thought again of how she'd found him looking out over the city, and she reached out to tuck his hair behind his ear.

His eyes opened. He stared at her.

"The wine."

His shoulder went taut. She draped her arm over him, holding him down.

"Leave it," she said. "It'll still be there in the morning."

He settled again beside her.

"You aren't the one who's going to clean it," he said.

"You're the one with the magic," she said.

His eyes closed again. She traced the side of his nose and his mouth puckered. A scowl. Sif smiled.

"You abuse me," he said.

"Mm," she agreed.

She set her head down by his head and rested her hand on his cheek. The storm cracked again. The rain on the windows grew discordant, the song lost as the clouds moved darkly over them. Loki's breath evened. Sif smoothed his hair. By the evening it would begin to curl again.

Water shush-shushed against the windows, on and on, and Loki was peaceful in her arms. How light her heart, then. Soon enough there would be things to do. The glass to return. A monster to slay. Someone to save. A villain to be punished or, perhaps, understood. Dishes to clean, she thought with distaste.

Sif curled around Loki and slept.


End file.
